The voice services network offers many services and features besides simple "toll-free" 800 and charged 900 services. Initially, a basic "toll-free" 800 number call was a simple one-to-one translation from the 800 dialed call to a traditional POTS destination telephone number with the associated reverse billing capability. At present, a single 800 toll free call placed on the voice services network can now be directed to different destinations based on numerous common discriminators such as the time of day, the originating NPA, basic information about the callers, the location of the calling party, any additional digits collected from the caller, the availability and preferences of the called party, as well as such items as call forwarding options when a busy signal is obtained.
New forms of digital communication services based on digital technologies are now being introduced into the phone networks. These digital communication services require end-to-end digital facilities in contrast to voiceband (POTS) services. Throughout the remainder of this description, data calls will refer to digital communication services calls and voice calls will refer to all forms of voiceband services carried over the POTS network. Digital services send various data calls on network lines such as the 56/64 Kbps data lines to transfer data for multimedia purposes, file and image transfer, slow scan video and numerous other data transfer requirements. Although the digital services networks are becoming prevalent in the telephone network, 800 toll free and other similar voice services are not provided for digital connections. The existing 800 toll free services network does not recognize data calls, and thus the data call would be routed as a voice call.
Some network subscribers of toll free 800 and similar services are now requesting end-to-end digital connections at various data rates to accommodate different data services such as image transfer and multimedia applications and to support hardware such as video terminals. For example, a high-end mail order service uses an 800 toll-free number for soliciting orders from its catalog. Adding end-to-end data capability to the same 800 toll free number would provide that mail order service with the option of using one telephone number to allow its customer to access different types of services, that is voice calls would go to a regular voice agent while data calls would be answered by a video agent. A video agent would provide a caller with visual representations of products and other order information. Other 800 toll free network subscribers may subscribe to smaller or larger data rates depending on the type of digital application, end user's equipment, job or service requirements, and willingness to pay.
In addition, different calling parties may request different data transport rates for data calls. One caller may request a 56 Kbps rate and another caller may request a 64 or 384 Kbps data call depending on the requested service. Thus, the data rate requested by a caller would become a "decision variable" used in combination with existing common discriminators to manage incoming calls efficiently. These data calls requesting separate rates (and services) could be served at separate destinations because the demand for such data calls may at first be small when any such system is implemented, and each requested data rate could possibly correspond to a different service. This allows the network subscriber to optimize the use of the various call centers.